I was a congressman and then mayor when I first came to know Terence Cardinal Cooke. Of the four cardinals I have known, he was the most beloved by the public. He was a very gentle man and perceived early on as a saintly figure. Indeed, Cardinal Cooke is currently being considered by the Vatican for sainthood, and I have given testimony in the Vatican’s extensive inquiry into such a designation.

Having much to do with our friendship, I recall when Cardinal Cooke opened a Fifth Avenue door at St. Patrick’s Cathedral that had been closed for 100 years. He asked me to stand with him when he unlocked the entrance. As the sunlight poured through the open door, he said, “Mayor Ed, this cathedral belongs to you. ” (I could never get him to call me Ed. When he said “Mayor Ed,” I could hear the neighing of horses, there being a very popular television show at the time featuring a talking horse called “Mr. Ed,”) but at that moment, I did indeed feel as though the cathedral belonged to the cardinal and me.

Ed Koch may have felt as though the cathedral belonged to the cardinal and him, but today marks the day the Lord of that cathedral and all others, arrived on the scene and was recognized by waiting, holy hearts. May God bless the soul and eternity of Mayor Ed, the Cardinal, NYC, the city of my birth, and the world.

Feast of the Presentation of the Lord

“And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him; and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, ‘Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), and thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed’” (Luke 2:33-35).[1]

The feast marks the day Jesus was carried in the arms of His mother, to be presented according to the Law of the Old Covenant into the Temple. Sarah Ciotti writes:

It celebrates the holy convergence of Jesus the Messiah with His people who faithfully waited for His coming. Traditionally, the feast is celebrated with the greatest of joys and thanksgivings. Forty days after the solemnity of Christmas, Mary and Joseph consecrated Jesus in the Temple of Jerusalem, showing their obedience to God and fulfilling the Mosaic Law. Simeon, a just and devout man, utters a prophecy that Jesus will be the light of the Gentiles and the glory of Israel. Anna thanks God for the child and talks about him to all who looked to God for the deliverance of Jerusalem. Amid their joy looms the shadow of the cross, the opposition Jesus will face and the sword of suffering Mary, too, will experience. [2]

Do you want to know what Margaret Sanger, the great “heroine” of Planned Parenthood, and abortion-advocates and committed elitiststhroughout the nation had to say about African American and lower-income populations?

We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. And we do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.

All of our problems are the result of overbreeding among the working class, and if morality is to mean anything at all to us, we must regard all the changes which tend toward the uplift and survival of the human race as moral.

Eugenics is … the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems.

I have no doubt that Sanger would have applauded yesterday’sarticle of full revelation at Salon, and the admission that “Sure, abortion ends a life, so what?” That writer echoes Sanger: some lives are worth more than others. She also writes that a life in utero is a life “worth sacrificing.”